


Heritage

by esama



Series: Beginning of an Age [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Vampire Hunter D
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Vampire Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 16:06:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11809446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: Harry tries to adapt to the times





	Heritage

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed, as usual

How long Harry had been pacing along the length of the Gryffindor common room, he isn't sure. It might have been minutes, it might have been hours – the windows are all blacked out and covered in curtains, so it's hard to tell the time of the day.

He keeps trying to turn over every interaction he had with D, trying to figure out where he'd gone wrong. Had there been a certain point or had he been going at it from the wrong angle the whole time, pushing at a fault he thought might be his point of entry, but ended up being the breaking point instead. He can see how he could've read the man so wrong, D was never easy man to read, but he'd thought he'd made some progress, that they had a common ground, that -

No, no he can't think at that angle, that one is the wrong one – the one where he thought he was right, that's not the way to go, because he hadn't been right. That's not disputable. He had gotten it wrong. That's a fact. "Accept," Hermione would say, "and re-evaluate."

That's the problem of being a vampire – you get to certain age and changing your mind about things becomes damn difficult.

Stopping in his pacing, Harry takes a breath and then, as always, glances up to the portrait. Ron is deep asleep, his head dipped slightly towards his chest, mouth hanging ever so slightly open. Hermione is asleep against his shoulder, resting her cheek against it, making the fabric of Ron's robes grease.

"What did I do wrong?" Harry asks the sleeping images, who have been sleeping for better part of a thousand years now. "Where did I mess up? He said I overwhelmed him, that he felt like I was trying to mould him. I wasn't, I _wasn't_..."

He continues the pacing – and no, it doesn't matter if he was or wasn't, that was what D felt like. Accept and re-evaluate

D had always been so quiet, though. And so cold too, always so seemingly uninterested about everything. When they'd walked Hogwarts it had always been long stretches of Harry telling him about the castle, with D only occasionally asking a question. And every question he had asked had felt like opening. It had felt like D had been prodding the conversation along, like he wanted to know – it had –

Wrong again, had to. The conclusion was what it was, so the process was wrong. But how, how did he mess it all up so colossally?

 _"I don't want to be your_ student _."_

Harry pauses again, making a face. He'd thought that was exactly what D had wanted – to learn. Asking all those questions – what else could it be?

Or... had that been the only ground Harry had left him?

D obviously communicated very differently from him – Harry had read him completely wrong. The kiss alone was testament of that.

"Merlin damnit," Harry mutters, running a hand over his chin. There certainly had been no signs of that, not a hint D might've been interested. Harry had suffered... thousands of crushes and hundreds of attempts of romance, both before and after he'd started teaching at Hogwarts and he usually could tell the signs but...

But that was thousands of years ago – and who knew, maybe things were different now, maybe people showed that type of interest on each other differently these days. Maybe it had been obvious, but he hadn't seen – because he'd been too damn excited about having someone other than just himself at Hogwarts again. Someone... to teach.

Harry slumps down a little and sighs.

"I really did see him as student, didn't I?" he asks, looking up to the portraits. "Even after he told me he's over nine thousand years old, I looked at him and I saw... someone to teach. Someone to guide."

And yes... someone to mould. That was what teachers did; after all, they moulded good adults out of rowdy children. And D might've been nothing like that, but when Harry looked at D, he'd seen a young man under twenty... a child. He'd never considered what it might mean, that the man was a dhampir – and thus immortal, like a vampire.

By the time D admitted his age, Harry was already stuck in his way of thinking, and couldn't quite turn that train around. And of course for someone like D, over nine thousand year old immortal... that would come out as nothing more than being patronized.

"Bloody fucking hell," Harry mutters and leans his head back.

He'd raised and taught and buried generations of wizards, they all blended into each other until the old men he dug graves for were to him children he had once taught to read. They were all so young, even at their most advances age they were, still, children to him. And then they were gone, while he grew older and older...

"Judging the book by its cover, at my age," Harry mutters and glances at the portrait. "You'd be ashamed of me. _I'm_ ashamed of _me_." The portraits sleep on and Harry sighs, lowering his eyes. "I'm an idiot."

He'd really wanted D to like Hogwarts, to stay. Would he, if Harry hadn't so massively cocked everything up? Would he have stayed? Would he ever come back now that he had, and D had obviously decided he didn't want it?

It so tempting to get a mirror and track the crystal now, just... just to see where D might be heading. Just to make sure he's alright. But... no.

That would be just continuing along the same line of thinking and he can't keep at it. D might've not said what he wanted out of Harry, but it definitely wasn't that.

"What he wanted was an equal, Harry."

Harry looks up sharply, searching the portrait wildly. But Hermione and Ron are still both deep asleep, having shifted not an inch in centuries.

"Yeah," Harry says and makes a face. "Yeah... bollocks. I've been teacher for too damn long."

He's quiet for a moment, eyeing the sleeping portraits of his long dead friends before sighing and turning away. Not that he'd been a teacher in thousands of years now. And now...

Harry shakes his head and turns to leave the common room. He's been whining to himself long enough.

"Retta!" he calls and the head house elf promptly appears beside him. "The silver, transport it back into the vaults, please – and, uh, clean it before you store it," he adds awkwardly. "It might be a little... bloody."

"Yes sir," the elf says, giving him a look – but she's not Nierra, isn't yet comfortable enough with him to give him a proper stink eye. Well, she'd learn. "Does Milordy Potter want anything else?"

Harry hesitates. "When D ...left," he says slowly. "Did he... take provisions?"

The elf blinks at him slowly.

"He didn't, did he," Harry mutters and runs a hand over his chin. Would it be too presumptuous... well at this point it might work as an apology. "Do you think you can track him?"

"Yes," Retta answers simply. "If not Retta then Dimmy can."

"Alright then. Have Dimmy prepare a patch of... hundred blood pops should do for a start," Harry says thoughtfully. "And then take them to D, please. Put a bow on it maybe... or would that seem patronizing, hm. On second hand, don't put a bow on it."

"Yes, sir, Milordy Potter," Retta says slowly, watching him somewhat warily. "Does Milordy Potter want anything else?"

"Let me think," Harry murmurs, wondering if he still should do something else, send D a letter maybe but... no. That would be just more talking, wouldn't it? And D wasn't a man of words, was he? More than a simple gesture and it might maybe be too much, again. The blood pops themselves might be too much, but... he doesn't really care. D himself said the stuff was normally expensive.

"No, thank you, Retta, that will be all," Harry says finally with a nod. "You can go."

The elf bows her head and then she's gone. Harry looks after her, and then turns to the staircase leading down.

D leaving is – not good... but it's a signal of something else too. The people of Terwich are warming up to him enough to feel safe around him even without a vampire hunter around.

It's time to get to work.

* * *

 

D won't leave his mind though. Every time Harry lets himself get even a bit distracted, it comes back to him – D's expression just before he left, that little hint of satisfaction before he walked away. Just after the – the kiss.

Harry still doesn't know what to think of that, the kiss. It still seems like it came out of the blue. It did come out of the blue. And D had been – satisfied with it?

It had been well over thousands of years since Harry had been kissed and even longer than that since he'd been romantically involved with anyone. It's something he'd simply learned to disregard about himself – after all, he is what he is. It's easier to simply not think about it than try and then suffer the loss. And it always ended up in loss. Now it's been so long that the whole concept seems weirdly alien.

And yet, he can't think much else. D had kissed him. D had _kissed him_ and then walked away from him. What the bloody hell was he supposed to think about that?

"Argh," Harry grunts and shoves the gem he's trying to work on away.

If it hadn't been for that little – what, an argument? A fight? Actual honest to Merlin _discussion_? That they had before the kiss, he could've disregarded it, like he'd disregarded the thousands of student crushes he'd had to endure as the immortal and eternally young professor of Hogwarts... back when Hogwarts still had students.

But in light of what D had said, he can't just brush it aside and so it keeps popping up to the forefront of his mind. Those words, _I don't want to be your student_ , they were weirdly familiar to Harry, too. How many teenagers had in fit of passion shouted something very similar at him, thousands of years ago?

Harry leans back in the headmaster's chair and eyes the bits of crystals and gemstones scattered in front of him with a frown. He almost wishes he could sum D up with them and just... ignore it. But he can't because, because...

D isn't his student. D isn't young, or ignorant, or juvenile. He is nine thousand years old, probably even older. He is an adult man, an immortal with all the implications that came with it, who'd found satisfaction kissing Harry out of the blue and who then... made the very adult decision to walk away from him in face of what he might've wanted, because of the position Harry had tried to shoehorn him into.

And now Harry keeps coming back to it, that moment. D telling him what he'd been doing, rejecting it, and then – planting a kiss on him and walking out on him, and what the bloody hell –

Harry frowns – and then realizes that the gemstone he's trying to craft is in the exact shape of the blue pendant D wears. "Oh for Merlin's sake!" he mutters and covers his face in his hands.

It's probably the most belated reaction in several millennia, but all of sudden he's blushing.

"You're pathetic, Potter," A voice sneers from the wall above the entrance to the headmaster's office.

"Shut up, no one asked you," Harry grunts without looking up to see if he's hearing voices in his head or in reality – he doesn't really want to know. This is embarrassing enough without an audience, real or imagined.

* * *

 

In the end he bows to the inevitable, and makes the magic detecting gem in the shape of D's pendant. It's... handy enough shape and he's already an apparent embarrassment, might as well go all out.

The pendant ends up blood red – partially because that tends to be how it goes with vampire magic and partially because it actually has some of his blood in it. It's a very like-looks-to-like type of magic, and the idea is that it would look to those with similar abilities to his own. So, it would glow in presence of magical people... and vampires.

After testing the thing on himself to see that it works as he wants it to, Harry turns his attention to Terwich.

"Time to find myself a student," Harry mutters and then hesitates. Without D there to work as go-between for him and the town's Mayor...

Showing up out of the blue even after what happened... probably wouldn't be a good idea.

"Retta," Harry calls, and immediately the elf is there. "Hello Retta, I have a question. We... wouldn't happen to have any owls in the Owlery?"

The elf hangs her head. "No, Milordy Potter. All the owls are gone."

"Shoot," Harry mutters, idly running a finger around the circular shape of the pendant now resting against his chest. "I don't suppose you could find me one?" he asks.

The elf looks a little dubious. "Milordy... all the owls are gone," she says slowly. "There are no owls left."

Harry blinks at her with surprise and then sighs. "Right," he mutters and rubs at his forehead. "Ten thousand years and the end of the world as we know it. No owls. Alright, never mind. Thank you, Retta. I'll... think of something else."

Maybe there's an equivalent of an owl out there? There were dragons – that aren't dragons as he knows – and unicorns – which very much aren't the unicorns he knows. Maybe there are _owls_ that aren't the owls he knows either, but which might be close enough to be trained...

Well, that would have to be later. For now he'd do what he imagines every other citizen these days does when they wanted to speak to their local representative. He'd head to the Town Hall.

* * *

 

Maybe the people of Terwich aren't _that_ warmed up to him, Harry muses as everyone recoils away from him, and immediate empty space opens up around him. People's faces go white and their eyes turn wild and everyone with a weapon immediately reaches for it, couple of them already aiming them at him.

"Good evening," Harry says as un-threateningly as he can and thinks he can, for a moment, smell the telltale sourness of someone pissing themselves. Wonderful, he thinks, and gets a blood pop from his pocket, to cover the scent with. "I'm sorry – I was wondering if I could talk with the Mayor but I don't really have other way to contact him other than to appear in person, so..."

Unwrapping the candy, Harry looks towards the counter at the back end of the entrance hall of the building, and the young man behind him gibbers at him for a moment. "J-just a m-moment, s-sir, I – I'll go and t-tell him," the young man stumbles out and then stumbles over his own feet in his haste to get to a nearby door.

Behind Harry he can hear the running footsteps of someone making a dash for the front door. Once that first person has dared to escape without Harry doing anything about it, others follow and soon everyone is running away around him, leaving him alone in the entrance hall except for one person with a hefty – and familiar – looking rifle.

Harry looks her over. "Militia, I presume?" he asks and sticks the bloody lollipop into his mouth. _Better_ , he thinks, as the blood flavour overwhelms his senses and he stops smelling the world around him so clearly.

"Vice Captain of the Terwich Local Militia," she says and aims the rifle at him. It's aimed very precisely at his heart, but though her expression is tense, she doesn't look exactly like she hates him. "That thing you did, with the Letbloods?"

"Hmm?" Harry hums. He'd thought it rather poetic at the time, and fairly effective seeing that his magic during daylight hours isn't terribly reliable... but in hind sight it had been rather crude. Especially in front of couple of kids...

"Thank you," the woman says and scowls at him as if expecting him to bite her head off for it."

"Um," Harry says and takes the lollipop out of his mouth. "You're welcome?" He offers, a little surprised

She nods and narrows her eyes. "That was my son, on the cart," she clarifies.

"Oh, I see," Harry says. "I'm – glad I could help."

"You only did it because one of our kids is the one you want, though, isn't it?"

Harry frowns a little. "No," he says slowly. "I did it because it was the right thing to do."

She scowls at him in disbelief.

"It wasn't as if I would have let the Letblood group get away with it, especially not since it was partially my fault they thought it was a good idea in the first place, going after kids," Harry shrugs. "I used to be something like you, actually, before I was bitten. A type of law enforcement officer. Sometimes you just can't shake."

The woman blinks at him and lowers her gun a little. "You're – a bitten vampire?"

Harry glances at her. "Except for one, every vampire is a bitten vampire," he says. "Those that say they aren't are lying."

The woman stares at him in disbelief and incomprehension as the Mayor bustles in, looking pale and nervous.

"Lord – I mean, Professor," the mayor says and almost trips over his feet. "What a surprise – and a pleasure, of course, you're always welcome here, of course, uh – what can we do for you?" he asks in desperation.

Harry hesitates a little. It still seems like he puts these people more on edge than the opposite. Is it still too soon? Well, nothing ventured... "I think it's time we discuss my reason for being here," Harry says.

The Mayor opens and closes his mouth and then seems to steel himself. "Yes, right – of course," he says and then takes a deep breath. "Right. Come this way, if you will, Professor, and we can talk about it in my office."

Brave, Harry thinks with some satisfaction, and then with a nod to the Vice Captain of the Terwich Local Militia, he plops the lollipop back into his mouth and turns to follow the Mayor to his office.

"Alright then," The Mayor says, taking another deep breath as he sits down behind his simple desk in the similarly simple looking office. Despite all the wealth Harry more or less gave the man's village, he doesn't seem to have partaken in it personally. "What, exactly, are you intending to do, Professor?"

Harry considers the simply furnished office and then takes a seat on one of the two couches there. Crossing one leg over the other, he turns his eyes to the nervous but determined Mayor. The man, having made a deal with the devil, is planning to see it through to the end now.

"If there is a child here with magic, I'm hoping to teach them to control it," Harry says. "To cast spells as wizards used to in ancient times. The situation here is different than it was back then, so I imagine it would... a little like a day school. Hogwarts is close enough to the village to walk to, though I suppose I could whip up a carriage so that the potential student wouldn't have to walk it all the time."

The Mayor swallows. "And what would these... spells entail?"

Harry leans back a little. "I can explain it, but I've found demonstration works better," he says. "Which is why I'm here. I was hoping to do a demonstration of magic at the local school, to the students, teachers and parents and whoever else wants to see – and at the same time I can check the student population to see if there is anyone with magic among them."

"A demonstration – w-what sort of demonstration?" the Mayor asks. "And how would this... checking of students happen?"

"It would a little like a stage show," Harry says and shrugs with a mild smile. "Nothing dangerous, just the basics of magic. Few charms, some transfiguration... that sort of thing. And as for the check, this," Harry touches the pendant, "will glow in the presence of someone with magic like mine, and that is how I will know."

The Mayor watches him suspiciously. "So," he says. "It... isn't necessary for you to test their blood?"

Harry makes a face. "Er, no," he says. "Not at all."

The human nods slowly, still watching him somewhat warily. "Alright then," he says, and thought he obviously doesn't like it, he nods again. "When would you like to hold the show?"

* * *

 

It is the most awkward and tense magic demonstration Harry has ever given – and in his time as Headmaster of Hogwarts, he'd given hundreds of them to countless of students. Usually it wasn't to a crowd of people who thought he was going to eat them all, though, so even during the usually most well received tricks of magic, there is a dead silence in the jam packed audience.

Well, Harry hadn't really been expecting anything different. Still, it's damn eerie, to turn chairs into dogs and tables into massive eagles and get no other reaction than blank horror from the audience. The only time he gets any other reaction is when he finishes the show and cleans the stage, at the same time taking a moment to fix the broken floor boards and some of the old, dysfunctional overt head lights, taking care of the couple of holes in the back wall while he's at it. But even then the reaction is suspicion, rather than wonder.

Alas, these days miraculous equals unnatural and suspicious, not magical and wondrous. Nobody trusts anything they can't kill, these days.

"And that's magic," Harry says and takes out a blood red lollipop. "That is what I'm hoping to teach to somebody here."

There was time when this sort of tense silence might've broken him, made him flail... but it's been like this for a long, long time now. Even in his wildest dreams, he hadn't expected it to be anything different. Even now, after the Letbloods and everything, it looks like all the people in the crowd are there on gunpoint, and not willingly – and every parent in the crowd is clutching onto their child like they expect them to be snatched away any moment.

"Why?" someone in the crowd demands. "Why can't you just leave us alone?"

Harry looks up at that. It's... not a surprising sentiment, but somehow it still hits home. And what can he tell them, that doesn't sound like threat? That untaught, the magic might go wild, might go sour, might turn on the on who has it? That child could use it to become strong, to defend themselves, their village, their people?

Because he suspects that if things go on the way they have for thousands of years, the days of not only vampires but of all living things on Earth are numbered?

"Because in this village there is something I haven't seen in thousands of years – a magical child who wasn't killed by their own parents for being a little different," Harry says and runs a hand over the blood red pendant. It's glowing faintly red, and has been glowing since he started the show. "That's a testament of love and tolerance rare these days."

Somewhere in the crowd a magical child, a new born witch or wizard, is watching him. They're probably terrified of him, but they're there, they're alive, they _exist_.

Harry smiles. "And it gives me hope I haven't had in a very... very long time." Hope that maybe they could get it right this time. Hope that maybe... he isn't still living for _nothing_ after all.

* * *

 

In the end it turns out there isn't a single magical child in Terwich.

There are three.

**Author's Note:**

> Bit of an intermission before the actual sequel. 
> 
> If you haven't watched the Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust movie yet, now's the time to do it.


End file.
